Agencies must rely on technology to improve employee connections, collaboration

employee engagement

[Ensuring the employee is supported and cared for] The federal space is extremely important because, obviously, federal agencies cannot surpass the private sector when it comes to talent acquisition. They really have to elevate their experiences so that you don’t sacrifice your quality of working life and financial security to work for the federal government.

kevin brooks

Principal Digital Strategist, DoD & IC, ServiceNow

culture and technology

When you have employees who are working in different locations, how do you connect and create culture through digital platforms? One way to do this is going to be senior leader engagement through technology, using Zoom or whatever platform you use for more than just meetings. It’s really re-recruiting your talent. You have to make them feel part of the mission or part of the organization by raising the cultural level through technology.

kevin brooks

Principal Digital Strategist, DoD & IC, ServiceNow

In the past 20 months, every agency and every business has experienced major changes in their workplaces. We don’t have to tell you how different your office today is than it was before the pandemic.

One thing agencies, and indeed all organizations, need to continually assess and address employee well-being.

The annual Federal Employee Attitudes Survey (FEVS) found a 3.9-point increase in employee engagement scores last year. Employees collectively gave agencies 86.1 points for the support they received during the pandemic and the ability of their work units to deliver on missions.

Overall this was good news for the last few years. So as agencies move into FY 2022, they must find ways to improve their employee engagement scores with solutions such as remote work, virtual meetings and the like when employees work in hybrid environments.

Researchers from the Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group found that successful agencies have a culture of integration that helps employees build their skills and professional networks. Researchers also say that a defined career path and association with mentors helps build a successful relationship with the agency.

Behind this is the data and technology that helps drive agencies towards the overall goal of creating a healthier workplace.

Kevin Brooks, chief digital strategist for the DoD and US Intelligence Community at Service Now, said agencies need to recognize the need to do more to care for and support their employees. He said this means ensuring that the employee is supported and cared for in the continuation of their career through internal and external activities and resources.

“This is of utmost importance in the federal sector because, obviously, federal agencies cannot surpass the private sector when it comes to talent acquisition. They really have to elevate their experiences so that you can work with the federal government. Jobs are not sacrificing quality of life and financial security in order to work for them,” Brooks said. innovation in government Show sponsored by Carahsoft. “At least if you do that, you have an opportunity to play to people’s sense of duty and call of duty. Workplace experience really matters and technology can really help because it helps that employee and Will help bridge that manager relationship, which is very important. We finally started talking about how people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.”

As the federal workforce continues to operate in a hybrid environment for the foreseeable future, Brooks said that building that connection between employees and leadership in particular, and ensuring that collaboration is safe and easy, can help maintain the organization. And are among the most important ideas to expand. .

“When you have employees who are working in different locations, how do you connect and create culture through digital platforms?” he said. “One way to do this is going to be senior leader engagement through technology, using Zoom or whatever platform you use for more than just meetings. It’s really re-recruiting your talent. You have to make them feel part of the mission or part of the organization by raising the cultural level through technology.

Brooks said one approach to better engagement with employees is something called travel management where a supervisor and an employee use tools to help them navigate their careers.

“It starts with onboarding and there is an easy onboarding process called the Journey Accelerator. This is where the manager can create a customized role-based plan for each employee, reflecting that personal touch and They can use it to organize activities and tasks to personalize that employee’s experience,” he said. “Then there is something called a listening post, where we capture their feedback in a more coherent way Instead of just doing an annual employee survey, this listening post pops out each one from time to time and you’re able to get employee feedback. We do the same thing for learning posts. where we can enhance that training environment for that individual employee experience and HR can create a set of experiences for a particular work group.

Brooks said these small, but significant efforts keep employees engaged with their jobs and the culture of the organization.

All these efforts can be roughly summarized as having three general themes:

• Employee care and support, which focuses on ensuring that they feel supported and cared for in the continuation of their employment.
• Communication, which focuses on your organizational values, expectations and then enables employees to participate in those discussions and activities that help raise the culture and then when things go wrong either through poor performance or Something happens mutually between employees, so how do you reduce those items?
• Accountability, this is how you solve challenges that come your way.

“We’re at an inflection point. COVID prompted the federal government to make some decisions fast. Things are probably coming, but they had to get there quickly. So don’t go back now. We really have to put the pedal down.” There’s more opportunity to go,” Brooks said. “You have two turbulent generations coming into the workforce. They will have different expectations. You have GenXers like us who think we’re technical, so we’re more than willing to grow with that. As we move up to more senior levels, take advantage of us and the opportunity that COVID has provided to truly grow your transformation and keep going. “